Help!! I’m Not Net-Savvy!!
My sister’s friend’s pc was having problem. She asked me to format her pc. Oh well, I said format is always the last option if you’re on Windows XP :happy: Windows XP is quite reliable compared to the previous Windows.
So, she brought her CPU to my place. Amazing, a 1.8GHz Pentium 4. Hah, compare to mine, a 0.8GHz Pentium 3. Hahahaha. Anyway, I checked her pc, and I found out her pc :
- Starts up very slowly
- Have too much spywares.
Man, even my system startup faster than her’s. I don’t mean anything on this post, but I just hope this few tips could help everyone to be a more net-savvy.
How to be web-savvy? It’s simple. Be extra careful and paranoid. Being paranoid does help.
Sometimes in your mailbox, here it comes some mail to you with attachment from your friend/relatives. Try to be paranoid. See what attachment is attached? Is it normal pictures (*.jpg is the most normal one)? Is it songs? Movies? Attachment such as *.pif, *.exe, *.bat and *.scr and dangerous. Spammers/Virus use your friends’ email to blind you. Just be careful and you’ll be safe. 
2ndly, it’s important that you don’t simply download stuff and install. Read what’s on the installer. Certain software come bundle with “unwanted” wares where you can choose not to install. Certain p2p software forces you to install those “unwanted” wares, and it’s better you remove them with Spyware Removal Software such as Ad-Aware.
3rdly, change your browser. Hah, Internet Explorer is not the best. There’s other alternatives such as Mozilla or the lightweight version, Firefox. But if you still want to use Internet Explorer, I’d recommend getting Google Toolbar, to block pop-up ads.
4, get yourself a firewall. The basic built-in Firewall in Windows Xp/SP2 isn’t good enough. If you’re too newbie with this firewall thing, get ZoneAlarm. It’s good enough to just know which application is sending/receiving data on you pc. Just as some suspicious program (backdoor) wants to go online, firewall can stops them.
And lastly, don’t trust the internet too much. Hahaha, frauds by lamers, spam by lamers, or anything that is bad done by lamers. Internet is too open. All shades of people are here. From white to black. From good to bad. Depends on you to trust them. Don’t trust my tips too much too 
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December 27th, 2004 at 2:39 pm
well i say it depends…
i don’t use any antivirus and firewall on my computer for now….it slows my startup anyhow…
up till now i have to problems with viruses and trojans and spyware…
December 27th, 2004 at 7:44 pm
hacing kaspersky a-v & a-h on my half-rubbish celeron 1.2ghz startup, not too bad la startup time. Foy spyware, scan it one per week using spybot s&d, ad-aware & wb spyware sweeper..
December 27th, 2004 at 9:21 pm
I normally online without having realtime scanning on. Real time scanning just slows my pc performance. I just be extra careful, take extra precaution when im online.
What’s weird is, the pc im fixing has realtime scanning enable all the time, yet the spyware is tottaly taking over the system!!! Look’s like she’s not careful enough.